


Never Tear Us Apart

by starspangledmanwithaplan



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Angst, Blood, Blood Loss, Blood and Injury, F/M, Injury, Language, Light Angst, Reader-Insert, Reader-Interactive, Serious Injuries, Super Soldier Serum
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-18
Updated: 2019-09-18
Packaged: 2020-10-21 07:38:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20689877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starspangledmanwithaplan/pseuds/starspangledmanwithaplan
Summary: Clint and Tony work together to rescue you from Hydra.





	Never Tear Us Apart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jessica_Bones_Winchester](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jessica_Bones_Winchester/gifts).

> This is set during Age of Ultron. Written for @ackeviddlestan Clint Barton Song List Challenge on Tumblr. My song was Never Tear Us Apart by INXS.   
Translations were found on Google.   
Sections in italics are flashbacks.

It was long after the party was over. The small group that remained hung out in the common room, drinking, sharing war stories, poking fun. Beer and wine still flowed. And then Tony Stark’s AI came to life. Taking advantage of Ultron distracting the Avengers, Hydra had taken you. Slunk into the compound in the middle of the night. 

Not that you went quietly. While your friends were downstairs, you were upstairs, putting up a  _ hell _ of a fight. You’d killed four agents and had two of them on the ropes. They were about to tap out, beg for mercy before you snapped their necks, but there was a pinch on the back of your neck. Bug bite prick. 

The floor shifted underfoot and your vision blurred. The sedative must be potent, combating the super-serum-approved-high-metabolism surging through you. You dropped like a sack of potatoes, head bouncing on the floor like a basketball. Black ate at the edges of your vision, darkening the room, but not before you heard a gruff voice. 

“Misiune indeplinita.”  _ {Mission accomplished.} _

You knew that voice. It was…  _ nothing _ . 

_ Liechtenstein. August, 2009.  _

_ “It’s not The Winter Soldier,” Clint argued through his teeth. “I’m tellin’ ya, Nat. This one is different.” _

_ Nat snorted, glaring at her partner over her shoulder as he stitched up the weeping gash in her back. “Whether it’s The Winter Soldier or not is not the point, Barton. They’re from Hydra. They’re enhanced. We’re fuckin’  _ ** _dead_ ** _ .”  _

_ He tugged on the black thread. Pulled the skin together. Scarlet oozing, seeping. “This ain’t gonna hold very long.”  _

_ “It’ll hold long enough. Hurry up,” Nat panted, impatient, pained. Heavy footfalls echoed through the warehouse. “She’s comin’ back.”  _

_ “Goin’ as fast as I can.”  _

_ “Leși, ieși, oriunde te-ai afla,” she sang, metal whistling through the air as she twirled the katana. {Come out, come out, wherever you are.} _

Clint lost his goddamn mind when he did a sweep after Ultron was put down. Glass littered the floor, glittering like diamonds in the moonlight. Bodies were  _ everywhere _ , so was the blood. Thick and tacky, clinging to his fingerprints, to the tread on his boots. 

He called out for her, pistol in his palm. Bulky, awkward. He’d rather have his bow. “Baby, I need you to answer me.” 

Wind whistling through the broken window was his only answer. 

“Jarvis,” Clint gruffed. 

“Yes, Agent Barton?”

Clint nudged one of the bodies with his toes. “I want to know everything that happened in this room.” 

“Yes, Agent Barton.” 

_ San Marino. February, 2010. _

_ Three thousand people were dead, and she wasn’t done yet.  _

_ For whatever reason, Hydra wanted to send a message to the Vatican, and Y/N, their number two assassin, was the psycho for the job.  _

_ Last August, Nat and Clint had gotten lucky, snagged a picture of the assassin. It was grainy, but it would have to do. Tony put that picture into the system within fourteen hours, he had little to no information on who she was. “All I got is a name, place and date of birth.” _

_ “Better than nothin’,” Fury sighed.  _

_ “Y/N was born April 28, 1956 in Timisoara, in the Banat region of Romania.” _

_ “That’s it?” Clint scoffed. “She almost took off Nat’s head in Liechtenstein. She’s out there  _ ** _right fucking now_ ** _ slaughtering people, Tony!” _

_ “You think I don’t know that,” Tony shot back.  _

_ As if on cue, Maria Hill’s beaten body was thrown through the window. Phasers burst from Tony’s hands and chest, and Clint set off a series of arrows. None of them hit their mark. She laughed melodically, blew up a school, and called for an extraction. _

The drum inside your head roused you, pulled you from the hazy darkness slowly. Everything hurt, fire through your veins, muscles protesting. Your mouth was bone dry when you tried asking for something to drink. Knuckles colliding with your cheek made nausea rocket through you. Blood spilled onto your tongue, making you gag. 

“Soldat, raport de misiune.” It was the same gruff voice from the compound.  _ {Soldier, mission report.} _

Stars exploded behind your eyes as you pried them open. There was one light in the room, directly ahead of you, blinding you. 

“Who… who are you?” you rasped, throat hurting. 

Another crack of knuckles against your cheek. “Soldat, raport de misiune.”  _ {Soldier, mission report.} _

_ New York. April, 2010. _

_ The news seemed to burst out of Tony. “She was in Chernobyl.” _

_ “When?” Clint wanted to know. _

_ “When  _ ** _it_ ** _ happened.” Tony moved his hand over the screen and a picture materialized. “She was a fourth grade teacher.”  _

_ Clint strolled over to the wall and stared hard at the picture, arms crossed. “How the hell did she survive?” _

_ Tony brought up more pictures. “There’s a genetic abnormality in her DNA. She absorbed the radiation from the blast and came out seemingly unscathed. Well, apart from being brainwashed by Hydra.” _

_ “How’d they get their hands on her? Nobody was allowed there for years. Hell, I don’t think people are allowed there  _ ** _now_ ** _ .” _

_ “Ready for this one? Hydra was behind Chernobyl. Suffice it to say they were prepared for the radiation.” Tony opened a virtual file and zoomed in on a document. “They still own it.” _

_ “The factory?” questioned Clint. _

_ “The entire fucking town.” _

_ Clint cracked his neck. “They’re still there.” _

_ Tony smirked and nodded. “They’re still there.” _

The room stank of blood, of death. Every inch of you was covered in sweat, it ran in rivulets down your spine, between your breasts, settled in your bellybutton and the creases of your thighs by your groin. 

“Soldat, raport de misiune.” With a flick of his wrist, the skin of your thigh split open.  _ {Soldier, mission report.} _

“Stop saying that,” you panted, forcing the words out through your teeth. The pain from the fresh cut hadn’t hit yet, but the blood was spilling. Cascading down your calf like a waterfall. “I don’t have a report for you!”

He chuckled, low, menacing, gravel. “O voi scoate din tine, soldat.”  _ {I’ll get it out of you, soldier.} _

_ Boston. November, 2010.  _

_ Chernobyl was a bust.  _

_ Tony and Clint stayed there for six months, taking every precaution against the remaining radioactivity. Specialized suits, breathing equipment, pills from Stark’s lab They killed whatever Hydra agents they stumbled upon, scoured through every bit of information, and reported back to Fury with a big ol’ goose egg.  _

_ Well, not entirely. _

_ “What’s this?” Fury picked up a black leather book and started flipping through the drawings and swirly Romanian penmanship.  _

_ “It’s code,” Tony answered, smiling. “We can break her.”  _

_ “Break her?” Fury repeated in disbelief.  _

_ “Deactivate,” Clint clarified. He bent over and flipped to the right sequence. “Right here, see?” _

_ “And what do you plan on doin’ with her?” Fury wanted to know. _

_ Tony shrugged. “We haven’t actually thought that far ahead.” _

Clint was pacing and it was driving Tony crazy. 

“That’s it. No more coffee for you,” Tony partially teased.

Clint chewed on his thumbnail and shook his head. “Three days, Tone. She’s been gone for three days.”

“I know.”

“We haven’t heard a peep out of Hydra.”

“I know.”

“She should have been able to escape. She’s… strong.”

“I know.”

“Unless they kill-”

“Hey, no,” Tony interrupted Clint’s train-wreck of a thought process. “She’s not dead, okay?”

Clint’s eyes were watery when he looked at Tony. “You don’t know that.”

“Yeah, I do.”

“What do you mean?”

Tony waved Clint over to the table that doubled as a monitor. He opened her file and pulled information out, showcasing it in high definition. “It’s an implant. Monitors her vitals.”

“Jesus, Tony,” growled Clint. “You didn’t think to tell me this sooner?”

Tony shrugged. “I would’ve told you if something happened to her.” 

Clint squeezed his eyes shut and worked hard to push down the anger bubbling in his chest. She was alive. That was what mattered. “Do you know where she is?”

“It’s not a tracking device,” Tony snorted. “Though, now that something’s happened, I should rethink chipping each one of us.”

“We’re not animals from a shelter,” Clint chuckled. 

“Depends on who you ask.” Tony winked at his colleague. 

Scraping a hand over his tired features, Clint groaned. “Is there maybe a way you can get into the implant and turn it into a tracking device?”

“That is a possibility.”

_ Oslo. May, 2011. _

_ Her katana was broken. Shattered by one of Tony’s phasers. Bits of metal flicking through the air, skittering along the concrete. A feral growl ripped out of her and she charged.  _

_ One of Clint’s arrows landed deep in her thigh, another in her right shoulder, but she didn’t slow down. Despite all the damage and carnage she had done, Shield wanted her alive.  _

_ She had Tony by the throat, slammed him against the wall.  _

_ “Thought you said those were special arrows,” shouted Tony, desperately clawing at her hands.  _

_ “They are. Just give it a minute.” _

_ “I don’t  _ ** _have_ ** _ a minute, Barton.”  _

_ “Shutdown is imminent, sir,” Jarvis alerted Tony.  _

_ “How long?” _

_ “Fifteen seconds.”  _

_ Another arrow whistled through the air, landing square between her shoulder blades. She flinched, but her grip did not waver.  _

_ “Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven.” _

_ “Come on, Barton!” _

_ “In a second!”  _

_ “Three. Two.”  _

_ Electricity surged through the super soldier. Burning ozone filled the space as her body jerked. Her grip loosened, releasing Tony in time to avoid pulling him down with her.  _

_ “Systems restoring,” Jarvis assured Tony.  _

_ Clint jumped down, feet hitting the floor oddly quietly. “Remind me to send a thank you note to Thor.” _

He had his hand in your grease-and-blood-laden hair, yanking your head back. His breath was rancid when he repeated his previous command. “Soldat, raport de misiune.”  _ {Soldier, mission report.} _

“Nu am un raport,” you spit out. “Nu sunt soldatul tău.”  _ {I don’t have a report. I’m not your soldier.} _

He gave a menacing chuckle. “Vom face acest lucru atât de greu.”  _ {We’ll do this the hard way, then.} _

You knew exactly what he meant. He was going to reactivate the soldier in you. You whimpered and tugged on the restraints, but the sedative they had used on you in the compound had been injected into your veins every two hours for the last… God, how long had you been gone? You were weak, almost human, and you hated it. 

He retrieved the book from a bag, licked his fingers, and began flipping through the pages. 

“Nu. Vă rugăm să nu faceți acest lucru,” you begged, tears streaming down your face, streaking through the dirt and blood on your face.  _ {No. Please don’t do this.} _

His accent obscured the first word, muddying it. “Longing.” 

Electricity, not unlike Thor’s lightning, crackled in the back of your brain. “N- no.”

“Rusted,” he sneered, circling you, watching you from the corner of his eyes.

A cold shudder slithered up your spine. Your hands flexed on their own, your muscles betraying you. “Stop. Ple- please.”

He was undeterred. “Seventeen.” 

Something flashed behind in your eyes. Death. Chaos. Destruction. Blood. God, so much blood. And the bodies. You cringed, bile in the back of your throat. Bitter and copper. 

“Daybreak.”

“Stop it,” you begged your captor, back arching as your muscles flexed involuntarily. The soldier inside of you was waking up, stretching. 

“Furnace,” he said with a wolfish grin.

The wall blew in, sending you flying back, chair and all. Rubble rained down, cutting you open, spilling even more blood. Your vision was jumpy and distorted, like a badly out-of-focus movie. There were phaser blasts and arrows zipping through the smoke. Screaming and fists landing on flesh. 

Tony’s voice boomed out. “The fuck? It’s General Ross!” 

You  _ knew _ you recognized his voice. Just as your vision started to fade, Clint appeared in your periphery. 

“You found me,” you croaked, a sob building in your chest. 

He pushed the hair and dust from your face. “I told you, baby. Nothing is  _ ever _ going to tear us apart.”


End file.
